Staff Profiles

Dr Rory Padfield

Senior Lecturer in Human Geography

Department of Social Sciences

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Phone number: +44 (0)1865 483740

Email: p0083017@brookes.ac.uk

Location:

Rory is a Development Geographer working at the interdisciplinary interface of human geography, development studies and environmental studies. Rory started his appointment as lecturer in human geography at Oxford Brookes University in September 2016 following six years lecturing at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur.

With a primary geographic focus on Southeast Asia and drawing insights from postcolonial and political ecology perspectives, Rory’s research engages with the broad themes of uneven development in the global South, digital development, supply chain and natural resource governance, and media representations of sustainable development. Within his research portfolio Rory has investigated the potential for digital technologies to support smallholder farmers in Southeast Asia, policy interventions for biodiversity, conservation and protected areas management in Peninsular Malaysia, and representations of climate change in the Malaysian media.

Rory's knowledge and experience of development in the global South is grounded in six years living and working in Malaysia and extensive fieldwork in Zambia during his PhD. Rory has developed a comprehensive network of local and international stakeholders which he draws upon to develop high quality research proposals and projects.

Undergraduate

Journal articles

Salim H, Padfield R, Lee CT, Syayuti K, Papargyropoulou E, Tham M, 'An investigation of the drivers, barriers and incentives for environmental management systems in the Malaysian food and beverage industry'Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy 20 (3) (2017) pp.529-538ISSN: 1618-954X eISSN: 1618-9558 Abstract Food production and consumption is one of the major causes of global environmental degradation. One way to address environmental impacts in the food and beverage (F&B) sector is via the adoption of environmental management systems (EMS). To date, EMS research has focused predominantly on countries and sectors based in the Global North despite growing recognition of the global extent of environmental impacts from food production and consumption. In order to widen our knowledge of this topic in an under-researched emerging economy, this study examined factors determining EMS adoption within the Malaysian F&B industry. Drawn from a survey of 42 companies, this research investigated the drivers, barriers, and incentives to the adoption of the internationally recognized standard, ISO 14001. Discrepancies between the perceptions of small- and medium-sized enterprises and large companies’ as well as different product market groups were observed. It was found that large companies tend to have better understanding of the EMS concept and the enhancement of company image and improvement of environmental performance were the main drivers to implement EMS. High implementation costs and the lack of knowledge on the ISO 14001 standard were identified as the primary barriers to EMS adoption. Tax relief for certified companies and training and capacity building were considered as the most important incentives. Strategies were proposed to improve the environmental performance of Malaysian F&B companies which can strengthen the competitiveness of Malaysian F&B products in the global food market.Website

Salim H, Padfield R, Hansen SB, Yuzir A, Shaza M, Syayuti K, Tham M, Papargyropoulou E, 'Global trends in Environmental Management System and ISO14001 research'Journal of Cleaner Production 170 (Jan. 2018) (2017) pp.645-653ISSN: 0959-6526 Abstract The International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) 14001 Environmental Management System (EMS) standard provides a guideline for an organisation to perform a continuous improvement to their environmental performance. In light of continued concerns over global environmental impacts and climate change, the ISO 14001 standard serves to demonstrate organisational commitment to sustainable production processes. The objective of our paper is to determine the thematic and geographical trends of published EMS research with a view of developing a coordinated and holistic research framework which can be applied to facilitate the adoption of ISO 14001 in developing and developed regions of the world. Drawn from a portfolio of 509 articles from the Web of Science database, this study investigates the global trends of ISO 14001 EMS research between 2000 and 2016. The results show a considerable increase in scientific publications; from 10 articles in 2000 to 58 articles in 2016. Three themes were identified from the analysis: socio-ecological (60%), economic implications (25%), and environmental aspects (15%). In addition to a concentration of articles towards the socio-ecological theme of research, it is found that the majority of the published research derived from Europe (40%), North America (21%), and China (11%). Articles authored by researchers from developing countries were poorly represented in the findings. In order to address the thematic and global imbalance of EMS research, a research framework is proposed that promotes multi-stakeholders inclusion (e.g. industry, academics, government, etc.), cross-country research collaboration and a focus on demand-driven approach for problem solving and policy-making.Website

Evers S, Yule C, Padfield R, Varkkey H, O’Reilly P, 'Keep wetlands wet: the myth of sustainable development of tropical peatlands – implications for policies and management'Global Change Biology 23 (2) (2017) pp.534-549ISSN: 1354-1013 eISSN: 1365-2486 Abstract Pristine tropical peat swamp forests (PSFs) represent a unique wetland ecosystem of distinctive hydrology which support unique biodiversity and globally significant stores of soil carbon. Yet in Indonesia and Malaysia, home to 56% of the world's tropical peatland, they are subject to considerable developmental pressures, including widespread drainage to support agricultural needs. In this article, we review the ecology behind the functioning and ecosystem services provided by PSFs, with a particular focus on hydrological processes as well as the role of the forest itself in maintaining those services. Drawing on this, we review the suitability of current policy frameworks and consider the efficacy of their implementation. We suggest that policies in Malaysia and Indonesia are often based around the narrative of oil palm and other major monocrops as drivers of prosperity and development. However, we also argue that this narrative is also being supported by a priori claims concerning the possibility of sustainability of peat swamp exploitation via drainage-based agriculture through the adherence to best management practices. We discuss how this limits their efficacy, uptake and the political will towards enforcement. Further, we consider how both narratives (prosperity and sustainability) clearly exclude important considerations concerning the ecosystem value of tropical PSFs which are dependent on their unimpacted hydrology. Current research clearly shows that the actual debate should be focused not on how to develop drainage-based plantations sustainably, but on whether the sustainable conversion to drainage-based systems is possible at all.Website

Manzo K, Padfield R, 'Palm oil not polar bears: climate change and development in Malaysian media'Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 41 (4) (2016) pp.460-476ISSN: 0020-2754 eISSN: 1475-5661 Abstract To date, debates about climate change reporting in national media focus largely on Western democracies. We aim to broaden the scope for cross-national comparison by looking at climate change reporting in Malaysia – an emerging economy in the global South facing developmental tensions common to many, specifically an ambitious national climate change agenda in the face of an economy largely reliant on the extraction and export of primary commodities. Our questions are: How is climate change framed in Malaysian media? How do Malaysian narratives compare with those found elsewhere? How do climate change and development narratives interact in a ‘second tier’ emerging economy? And lastly, what do these interacting narratives say about the salience of neoliberal and North–South perspectives on climate change and development? To answer these questions, we undertook a content analysis of climate action stories published over a three-year period (2009–2011) in five English-language news sources. In addition to a high proportion of environmental-framed articles across all the news sources, our findings show that climate change has been framed as both a multi-scalar responsibility and a positive opportunity for two key stakeholders in development, i.e. neoliberal market forces and geopolitical actors keenly interested in restructuring the international political economy along lines reminiscent of the new international economic order (NIEO) demands of the 1970s. We label the key themes emergent from our analysis as climate capitalism and green nationalism (neither of which are unique to Malaysia), while demonstrating that debates about palm oil are particularly illustrative of the interaction of these themes in the Malaysian context. In the final section we suggest thinking of the interacting elements as a singular, structuralist model of green development – one reminiscent of discourses at work in other emerging economies.Website

Padfield R, Drew S, Syayuti K, Page S, Evers S, Campos-Arceiz A, Kangayatkarasu N, Sayok A, Hansen S, Schouten G, Maulidia M, Papargyropoulou E, Tham M, 'Landscapes in transition: an analysis of sustainable policy initiatives and emerging corporate commitments in the palm oil industry'Landscape Research 41 (7) (2016) pp.744-756ISSN: 0142-6397 Abstract The recent Southeast Asian haze crisis has generated intense public scrutiny over the rate, methods and types of landscape change in the tropics. Debate has centred on the environmental impacts of large-scale agricultural expansion, particularly the associated loss of high carbon stock forest and forests of high conservation value. Focusing on palm oil—a versatile food crop and source of bioenergy—this paper analyses national, international and corporate policy initiatives in order to clarify the current and future direction of oil palm expansion in Malaysia and Indonesia. The policies of ‘zero burn’, ‘no deforestation’ and ‘no planting on peatlands’ are given particular emphasis in the paper. The landscape implications of corporate commitments are analysed to determine the amount of land, land types and geographies that could be affected in the future. The paper concludes by identifying key questions related to the further study of sustainable land use policy and practice.Website

Hansen SB Padfield R Syayuti K Evers S Zakariah Z Mastura S, 'Trends in global palm oil sustainability research'Journal of Cleaner Production 100 (2015) pp.140-149ISSN: 0959-6526 Abstract In the past decade, palm oil has risen to become the most produced and consumed vegetable oil in the world. Growth of commercial plantations in Southeast Asia and recent expansions in West Africa and Latin America have led to a growing call for the sustainable production of palm oil, driven to a large extent by concerns over the associated impacts of deforestation and biodiversity losses. This study investigates the academic response to the calls for the sustainable production of palm oil by identifying and analysing Thomson Reuters Institute for Scientific Information indexed palm oil sustainability related publications from 2004 to 2013. The results show that the total number of publications has increased exponentially from 11 in 2004 to 713 by 2013. However, this growth is shown to be carried mainly by research within technical aspects of palm oil residue use; publications in the categories of land use & land use change, biodiversity and socio-economic aspects have increased, but the growth has been markedly slower. It is thus argued that there is currently an imbalance in research strategies since the focus towards technical topics is at odds with the major sustainability issues raised about palm oil production. To address the current imbalance in palm oil research, this study proposes a holistic framework for palm oil sustainability research with the aim of achieving multidisciplinary studies and emphasizing collaboration between industry and academia. Research sponsors and public bodies in charge of science, social science and technology research frameworks will thus benefit from improved understanding of where research and development resources can be allocated to facilitate the transition towards improved sustainability.Website

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